Crew Has Full Roster For Busy Weekend

By: Adam Jardy

The Columbus Dispatch - February 21, 2013 02:41 PM

Crew head coach Robert Warzycha will have a full deck of cards to work with for a pair of games
this weekend.

How he chooses to deal them, however, remains a secret. Saturday night, the Crew will face
Montreal in the championship game of the Disney Pro Soccer Classic in Kissimmee, Fla. Seventeen
hours after that game kicks off, the Crew will face the University of North Carolina in the Kirk
Urso Memorial Match.

With every signed, available player on the roster healthy, Warzycha said he will use two
different lineups for the matches but did not want to classify one as the starters and another as
the reserves.

“Some guys are going to play in the first game Saturday, and the guys who are not going to
participate will play in Carolina,” Warzycha said in a telephone interview this morning. “I’m not
saying that’s the first team or the second team. I’m not going to classify the first team or the
second team at this moment. We don’t have a first and a second team. We just have guys that
sometimes don’t play for the first team yet.”

After playing last Saturday, the Crew has had a week away from game action. With the MLS opener
nine days away, Warzycha said he has treated the week as he would a normal week of game
preparation.

Defender Chad Marshall, who left the team’s Orlando City SC match last Saturday after taking a
blow to the head, has not missed any practice this week, Warzycha said.

“He’s doing fine,” the coach said. “He’s practiced every day. He cut his lip. We just didn’t
want to risk anything. He was more upset about that than anything else.”

Midfielder Bernardo Anor could also see his first game action since suffering a torn anterior
cruciate ligament last summer.

The games will be the final chances for the unsigned players still in camp to earn a roster
spot. Warzycha said the Crew will make final cuts “probably at the end of this week going into next
week.

“We’ve got a pretty good idea of who we want to keep.”

And although playing games on consecutive days is not idea, Warzycha said the situation
transcends tired legs and logistics.

“We would not add a game that was not important, but this (Urso) game is very important and it’s
not only about winning,” he said.